Five Ways Ianto Got Back Into the Good Graces of His Friends
by Nancy Brown
Summary: After death, resurrection, and a lot of bother, Ianto is finally working for Torchwood again, but the new team has no reason to trust him.


Title: Five Ways Ianto Got Back Into the Good Graces of His Friends and Colleagues Following Major Career Fuckup Number Three  
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Lois, Steven, OCs  
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys  
Rating: R  
Spoilers: post-MD with mention of characters only, spoilers for "Lost Souls"  
Warnings: brief foray to the "sex pollen" side of the Force involving a minor  
Beta: **eldarwannabe** and **fide_et_spe** both helped bring this into being  
AN: Part of Straysverse and set shortly after Ferals. Also fills Trope Bingo square: mistletoe kiss

* * *

There aren't many who can claim to have nearly destroyed the world by accident on multiple occasions, unless they work for Torchwood. (Or CERN, but that wasn't their fault, really.) One of their on-going differences of opinion with the government regards how well an organisation dedicated to protecting the planet from outside threats can function given the number of threats they themselves bring about. Ianto's not alone in his culpability, but for the moment, he is alone in guilt for last week's terrible happenings. He embroiled himself, however unaware, in a Torchwood operation, and his blunders allowed a murderer to strike again. He can't even claim to have helped solve the case, only stood by as it ended - as part of him had known it would - in one last shedding of blood.

Jack has forgiven him, lightly and simply, because for all his bluster and bravado, Jack is tender-hearted to a fault regarding those he loves. Sadly that's causing different problems, snugly cocooned inside the initial trouble: this new team, these new people, cannot trust Ianto not to screw up again, and even as Jack shows him kindness, they are also losing their faith in their boss. Jack himself has said, only where Ianto can hear, that he's no longer capable of making impartial leadership decisions where Ianto is concerned. Ianto's positive that isn't a secret to the rest. He's a liability, they both are, at least in the eyes of people who will have to depend on one another for their lives.

But he has a plan.

-1-

If Gwen Cooper is the most soft-hearted woman ever to walk the Earth, then Lois Habiba is her perky little sister from another mother. He met her the first time she tried to help save the world, saying hello through the contact lenses. (He hopes she's not been told about their every use. Gwen was upset enough to find out she and Rhys were using the same relationship enhancer Ianto and Jack had borrowed from time to pleasant time.) Lois has a special kind of bravery he can sympathise with: terrified, she goes in anyway. Not like Jack, unafraid of (almost) anything. Not like Gwen, too caught up in the thrill to be worried about her own safety.

Jack hates sending Ianto out on any task more dangerous than a coffee run these days, but chasing Weevils spotted outside St. Helen's practically counts as same, which is why Lois goes along too. The others are occupied with bigger issues; the Rift may no longer be active, but Cardiff hasn't lost its reputation as a port city in all senses. The aliens still gravitate here. Some are friendly immigrants, but many aren't.

"Scanner says two," Lois says in a nervous voice beside him. "Make a left."

They screech around the corner, Ianto not admitting how much he's missed this. The excitement is mixed with dread, and with knowledge of how many Torchwood agents before them met their ends at a Weevil's claws.

"How good are you with the spray?" he asks, because he's seen her gun targets and knows she needs a lot more firearms training.

Lois nods, gulping. "Good enough."

He parks the car and they spring out. "Where are they?"

She points, and they're off, his leather soles and her heels silent under the noises from the cars driving by: just two people in business formal attire out to hunt monsters.

They're late, too late. Ianto's gorge rises as he sees the pair of Weevils dining on the remains of someone in hospital scrubs. There's too little left to identify male or female. Beside him, he hears Lois gasp, but the Weevils are too occupied with fighting over the scraps of their meal to pay her any attention.

The rules have changed. In days past, they'd have subdued the creatures, locked them away in the cells. But the cells aren't there any more, nothing is, and the new building can only contain so many. The current cells are reserved for the aliens they intend to catch and release, or else keep forever. These two are man-eaters.

Ianto readies his gun.

"I can take the shot." The tremor in her voice belies her assured words. Ianto goes to protest, but reads the expression on her face. Of course she's frightened, and ill at ease, but this is their job. He nods once, steps back, and keeps the gun ready in case of trouble.

It takes her four bullets to put them down; the first two rounds only injure, badly and messily. When they approach the bodies, Ianto sees one is still convulsing. With a confirming glance to Lois, he fires his only shot into its brain. The Weevil stops moving.

Lois stares at the three corpses, the one torn to bloody gobbets and the two she's killed, before she goes to the side of the alley and vomits. Ianto gives her privacy. Then he gives her his handkerchief. "My first month at the Cardiff branch, I lost a stone from puking so often," he tells her as she gets herself back under control.

"I've lost half." She catches his eye and they share an uneasy laugh, and together, they clean up the bodies.

-2-

Albert is going to be the toughest nut to crack. Ianto's not sure where to begin.

With Owen, their contentious relationship did not solidify into camaraderie until after Ianto shot him, after the four of them fucked up beyond forgiveness and Jack forgave them all anyway, after Jack left. Owen turned up stinking drunk on Gwen's doorstep at two in the morning for the traditional screaming at the ex before the also traditional sobbing and the drunken begging to resume their relationship, to no doubt be followed by the always-spectacular hangover and morning of deep remorse. Ianto suspects every adult male on the planet (with the possible exception of Jack) has performed this ritual at least twice.

Owen still pounding his fist on her door, Gwen called Ianto, not having to say that she could not dare ask Toshiko's help without ruining their uneasy friendship. (He never asked what she told Rhys, or if she slipped him another pill after. Wasn't his business.) Ianto dragged Owen back to the Hub and into the showers until enough cold water cooled him the fuck down. They shouted and snarled at one another until everything was out on the table between them: fucked-up decisions and dead girlfriends and why Jack was in fact a right bastard whom they both missed so badly they could taste his absence. After that night, they weren't best mates but they weren't enemies any longer.

Albert doesn't seem the "getting pissed and yelling at his ex" type, and anyway, Gwen's not interested in him.

Ianto watches him as he watches the rest, but Albert watches back, frowning. They ought to be mates: two men with rough childhoods who got caught up in the insanity of catching aliens and protecting the planet. Ianto is grateful for the opportunity that Albert's chance glimpse of Steven afforded them both. And yet...

"I'll put that away for you," Ianto tells him, collecting weapons after the others get back from the field. Albert grabs his own gun back with a flat stare.

"I'll clean it myself."

Ianto tries again on a full-team mission: living gargoyles on the rooftops, a delight for Jack and vertigo for everyone else. Ianto helps Albert take out a husky male bearing down on Gwen, but his chance for camaraderie is short-lived. The male's grief-stricken mate immediately attacks Ianto, and Albert shoots her dead.

So that's another life Ianto owes him, and the scowl and rolled eyes he gets when he mumbles his thanks are enough to tell him Albert considers him dead weight.

This isn't going to be easy.

-3-

He's known her for nearly three months and Ianto still cannot pronounce the name of Dr. Pol's species. She's one of the last, Jack told him with a weary recognition. Their sun went supernova two hundred years ago, and less than fifty thousand members of her kind remain in the whole universe. Ianto watches her when he can, amused and perplexed in turns. She can pass for human, although had he not seen Sontarans and thus had a better grasp of the description, he'd say she reminds him most of a squat potato, round and a bit dumpy. She's completely bald but wears a nice wig of neat black hair to fit in, and her face is often caught in an impish grin.

She tended his gunshot wound when he came home, as she tends most wounds, with a clucking mutter and a few kind words. He likes her. But she views him with the same distrust the other new people do, and he's got to thaw the ice between them.

"Clamp," she says, waiting for her instruments as she works. Without an official job title, Ianto can serve as an extra pair of hands. Her own hands aren't quite human, often hidden away in surgical latex, or in neat white gloves like an old woman. Deep in the guts of some alien who came out worse in a knife fight with a pissed-off Horendi, her fingers are faster than a human's, and able to sense more. It's fascinating, and weird.

The doctor flinches. Before Ianto can ask why, Jack bounds around the corner, offering a quick grin to Ianto before he asks, "What's the word, Polly?"

"Simple stab and grab," she says, her arms slithering easily out of the creature's guts. "Also, he was developing diabetes."

"Less of an issue now," Ianto said.

"But good information to have," she replied. "I didn't know this species could contract that disease."

Jack said, "It's the diet here. Come to Earth, next thing you know your sodium's up, your blood sugar's screwed, and you have to stop eating the locals for the sake of your cholesterol."

Ianto notices her twitch again at lunchtime, a moment before Jack comes into the room. Her expression smooths out in another moment. She acts like nothing is wrong. Odd.

"Your species is psychic," he says to her one day, passing her the bag of scones Lois brought in.

Dr. Pol delicately reaches into the bag, her extra-jointed fingers flicking scones to the side until she finds the one that pleases her, and she pulls out her prize. "No."

And now it's a game.

He watches her, and he pays close attention to her movements. On a slow evening when the others have gone and Jack is finishing up a conference call before the two of them go home, Ianto scans the office CCTV footage. He carefully makes notes of each time Dr. Pol twitches before she can possibly know someone's nearby.

The pencil falls to the paper when he's written down the eighth instance, and every time, it's Jack or Ianto himself walking into frame. A murmur, a shudder, sometimes just turning her head to greet them. She knows. But she was startled yesterday when Gwen came to the little medical area, and Dr. Pol ignores Albert. It's not men.

Ianto could ask Jack, Jack would certainly know, but asking would be cheating. Jack's the cheater, Ianto's the liar. It's a world of difference, but something's the same to their alien doctor. She senses something about them, something different.

Something wrong.

He considers this as they go out together to investigate a report of strange symptoms at the hospital that turn out to be 'flu. She's as cool as a space cucumber, and doesn't care when Jack calls them to ask for an update. She doesn't so much as sneeze when anyone else walks in, no matter how carefully he observes.

He's on the phone with Steven when he figures it out.

He finds her alone in the break room. Ianto sits down across from her. "You're time sensitive. Like the Time Lords."

Dr. Pol inclines her head, a difficult position showing respect. "Nothing like the Time Lords." Her tight smile indicates a quiet pride in him. "But yes. Time bends around you."

"I'm wrong," he says, bitterness edging the words.

"No, you're musical." She tries to explain, her hands gracefully tracing notes through the air, how Jack is like horns, like a jazz ensemble. He overpowers her with the enormity of his pressure on the timestream, like a radio turned on full blast. "We met that way," she says, her own voice falling into soft humming as she speaks of her time working in A&E, someone made of magic walking through the door to check up on Gwen's latest injury.

"You are like," she considers, "a guitar strumming slowly." Of course he is less than Jack. He's known that for years. That's not what bothers him.

"It must be discordant when we're together."

"You'd think so. But I quite like the harmony." She places a cup of tea in front of him.

-2a-

He tries again with Albert during the issue with the Gorash fleet. It's bad enough that UNIT has told Jack point blank to fuck off, they're handling this. Jack gives the team his nod, and they go to work despite the affront, desperate to disrupt the communications between the enemy's ships.

He misses Toshiko right now, misses her so hard he can't think except to visualise her hands dancing over the keys, easily picking out the pattern from the noise of the encrypted packets. Ianto takes a steadying breath. "Try there," he points to a place on Albert's screen. "That keeps repeating. It's got to be it."

Albert ignores him, scrolling so fast past the data Ianto's eyes water. "Go back," he tells Albert, who continues to scroll until he locates a tenuous variation. Albert smiles tightly.

Angered and annoyed, Ianto spins back to his own workstation, losing precious time getting through to the same signal Albert is tracing on his screen. He remembers where he saw the peaks. If he can just scroll back to them and identify the frequencies, he can jam the signals.

"Got it, boss." Albert's quiet victory carries through, and Ianto affects to ignore him now. Albert says, "I've run it through the first pass translator. Want me to order them to fire on each other's engines?"

"Do it," Jack says, and the main screen lights up ten seconds later. The fleet is in chaos. UNIT's ships, the few they have on hand, are more than enough to mop up the rest of the mess and send the Gorash packing.

As the others gather around Albert's station, warmly congratulating him, Ianto's program goes through. Hot embarrassment creeps up his neck as Mainframe identifies the peaks he saw as normal solar flare activity, part of the background noise of the solar system. Albert of course already recognised that and disregarded them in favour of searching out the real signals.

Ianto's adult enough to congratulate him. He's childish enough to imagine punching him in the face as he does so.

-4-

Gwen makes it easy. While Jack's on another call placating someone in Shanghai, she invites Ianto for a drink down the pub. (The new pub. The old one brims over with memories for them both. Ianto sees two ghosts in every corner.) They take a corner booth and they get their drinks. Ianto ponders what to say to her, how best to broker his apology.

"How are you?" she asks, tipping her glass. Gwen could always match him pint for pint. When they met, he'd figured her for the same light wine spritzers Tosh favoured, the drink of a woman who wanted to appear sexy and delicate whilst cutting the alcohol in her glass to keep her head straight. Gwen can do that, but she can also hurl curses as foul as any rugby fan when the match is on, and drink just as hard. He likes that about her, that she doesn't care what others think. It's a skill he's never managed to acquire.

"Fine. Settling in well. I think given another month, I may convince Albert not to look at me like something he scraped off the bottom of his shoe."

"Give it two months." It's an apprehensive joke and they match smiles the same way. Not just because of Albert: this is the second time Ianto has willingly walked back into Torchwood, and it's already killed him once. Some agents don't last two months. All three of their American team members died within six, never mind if one of them got better. (Another Torchwood tradition he can't help but be grateful to share.) If he's really choosing this life again, he's also choosing those odds. Part of him almost wishes Steven will call in two weeks to say he wants to leave.

She takes another sip of her beer. "Everything good at home, yeah?"

He raises his eyebrows slightly. "Fine. Everything good at yours?"

"Ah, you know. Rhys is still up in arms about the late hours, and I swear Anwen grew another three centimetres last week whilst we were busy with that stupid Larma case."

"I'm surprised you haven't talked Jack into letting her stay at the base with you."

"Too dangerous, he says. And he's right." Gwen hates admitting when Jack is right, but on this she seems resigned rather than furious. The night gets weirder and weirder. "Apparently his ex used to bring Alice around when she was tiny and they had a case to deal with."

Ianto fails to picture Jack with a toddler, and he's yet to see a single photograph of Lucia. "Couldn't we set something up in the new building?" There's a front office as before, but it's empty. Ianto walks through the room every day, wondering. He supposes a daycare centre would be out of the question.

"Maybe." She takes a long pull from her beer. He senses she is steeling her nerves. Another question about his home life? Gwen Cooper, finally giving in to her raging curiosity about how much sex her friends are having? He's prepared to give her a small tidbit, and begins to mull over what embellished detail he can spin, when she says, "Ianto, tell me one thing that's true about yourself."

He frowns. "What do you mean?"

She meets his eyes and gives him a sad little grin. "Do you remember our trip to CERN?" He nods. "You were possessed by that alien." He doesn't remember things exactly the same way she does, but he offers her an open smile to let her keep talking. Better that than argue. "I had to drag you back."

"You did. Saved my life. Thank you, in case I didn't say it enough then."

"You said it enough, but you're welcome." Her smile dissolves slowly, like a tablet dropped in water. "Do you remember how I got you to safety? I kept telling you we had to get back to the place where there was coffee and Jack, everything you liked in the world."

"I don't remember, but you've told me." He doesn't know where she's going with this. Perhaps it's the beer. Perhaps she's just caught up in memories of old times.

"And at your funeral," she continues, as ice stoppers his veins, "that was all I could think. Everyone treated me so kindly. And I let them. I let them think I was too broken up to speak in front of everyone, but all I could think of to say about you was that you liked coffee and Jack."

She glances up to see the lines on his face. "Last week, I forgot your funeral, forgot you died. I forgot how still your body looked cooling on the floor, turning blue." If there was ever air in this room, all traces have fled. The pub is colder than space, more airless than frozen seas of methane on alien moons. Time was ripped in a crack and stitched back together, and at this second, at her words, Ianto is back on the wrong side of the repair.

He takes a drink as Gwen goes on, unheeding. "Jack reminded me earlier today, and I couldn't believe I forgot. Everything melted back, but I keep wanting to push all the images away again." She's not the only one. "It's the timeline, isn't it?"

Unable to verbalise, he nods again. This isn't a conversation he wants to have, but he's nailed to the booth.

"I'm not sure how long I'll remember. That's why I need to talk to you tonight. Because right now, I can remember the week you died. I tried to convince your sister you and I had been friends. I told her what you'd said about your dad, and she had to tell me what he actually did for a living." Gwen's face is hurt and angry, an expression that rarely bodes well for the person she directs it at. Tonight that person is him.

"I stood at your grave and felt like a fraud because everyone around me treated me like I'd lost my best friend, and I couldn't bring myself to tell them that it wasn't so. That I barely knew you. I'd worked with you for years but I didn't know a single true thing about you except that you liked coffee. And Jack. And I'd just learned a week before that you hated ice cream because I hadn't even noticed that you'd never gone out with the rest of us when we wanted a treat."

She takes another drink. Gwen might match him on his pints, but she's not a pretty drunk.

"I spent months wondering how much of that was my fault, and how much was yours."

"Gwen…."

She cut him off. "It was on purpose, wasn't it? Telling stories and watching who paid attention. You told Owen and I that your dad took you to the Electro, whilst we stood in front of signs that said it closed in the seventies, and we still didn't notice. It was all a game to you. You must have laughed."

He sits back, wondering how thoroughly she must have studied him after his death to put together how many untruths he'd left her with. "It wasn't a game."

"You lied about _everything_. And I had to lie at your funeral to tell your sister and your cousins and everyone that we were friends because I couldn't admit we weren't. Couldn't admit you'd fooled me and I'd never bothered to get to know you well enough to know the difference." Her glass is empty and she signals the waiter for more, which is the last thing either of them needs.

"I didn't lie about everything." He plays with his glass. "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you."

"No, you're sorry that you're hearing about it this way. Isn't the ideal supposed to be that everyone discovers after you die that you were really this wonderful, mysterious person that they all regret every infraction they ever made against?" She's a bit nonsensical now, but he follows along. He remembers his own adolescent fantasies of the nice things people would say about him after it was too late. The pinnacle of the fantasy was of course being able to hear those nice things and gloat over how sorry they all were. Instead, Gwen is furious with him.

He's got a choice now. He could be furious back. No, it wasn't a game, but it was a test: sprinkle untruths and half-truths liberally into unimportant details to discover who cared enough to notice. Tosh did, once or twice, but Tosh is gone. Jack hasn't called him out directly on his little lies, even when he knew, when he had to know, but he's made Ianto swear never to tell him another. Owen didn't give a shit. While Gwen likes him, she's always treated Ianto with the same detachment and consideration she gave Toshiko or, God help him, Andy Davidson: fond but distant, even when Ianto and Gwen shagged on the floor of the old Hub that one time, the husk of the dead Dalek their only awkward witness.

She failed his tests every single time.

But the tests, however they'd bolstered his own quiet resentments against the others after Lisa's death, hadn't any point. Although he once allowed himself the idle daydreams of "They'll all be sorry when I'm gone," he's been there, done that, and the revelation is as hollow as he secretly suspected.

Gwen wants one thing that's real. From his difficult conversations with Rhi, he's sure she'll remember what he tells her, even after the memory of his death slips out of her mind again.

What can he tell her that is both accurate and significant but won't expose him to more grief? Coffee and Jack, nice suits and dry wit, that's all he's been to her. He's managed not to give out too much, not hand over something that can be turned around and used as a sharp or blunt weapon. He longs to admit one important thing and know it won't come rushing back in public at the worst possible time. (Another test: Tosh pointed out to him in private how far-fetched the notion was that someone as delightedly promiscuous and affectionate as their captain would be inconsiderate in bed. Martha passed a related test when the seeded words 'innovative' and 'avant-garde' failed to infiltrate subsequent discussions in the Hub.)

Every debt has a price. His payment to Gwen has been demanded in the coin of honesty.

He's playing with his drink. She won't be put off forever. "I was arrested when I was seventeen for shoplifting."

"I know. Your sister told that story at your funeral."

He's momentarily nonplussed. "She did what?"

"You stole a shirt. A wretched one, she said. Lime green."

"It was a dare," he says, uncomfortable until he sees her playful grin peeking out. He's opening up to her and Gwen's taking the piss. Which, actually, is quite nice. "Who showed up, besides you? I know Jack didn't go. Who else heard about my wayward youth?"

"Oh, a lot of people. I only knew Martha. So you'll have to explain to her as well that it wasn't your terrible taste in clothing showing."

"I have excellent taste in clothing, thank you, which is another true thing you already know."

She smiles. He smiles back.

This is a different game, then, a more difficult test: one question, pass or fail. Gwen can't pull off the naughty teacher persona, more's the pity.

But just because she's grading doesn't mean he can't set his own curve.

"Ask me one question, on anything, and I'll give you one completely true answer."

He's made his play, and watches her face as she considers. The waiter has been and gone again. In one corner, he can hear a television. The mutters and laughs of the other patrons wash between them, and the smell of spilled drinks. There ought to be a light haze of smoke and the choke of old cigarettes in a pub with walls and floors older than his great-grandparents, but the future is smoke-free. He can't hide.

He regrets the choice he's given her as Gwen examines his face, her brain ticking over what to ask. He's worked with geniuses, and Gwen is…. Well, his Mam would say God gave her an extra big heart and a pat on the head. But she's got a specific genius of her own when it comes to people. Gwen Cooper can convince a hardened killer from halfway across the galaxy to sob out loud about his antennaed granny and confess where the money's hidden. Ianto can still dissemble regardless of what she wants to know. He can. But she takes a drink and moves her hair from her face, and he knows he won't.

"All right." She takes another breath. "Do you wish I'd walked into that room with Jack instead of you?"

There's no question of what room. He doesn't have to contemplate his answer. "Yes. But not as often as I used to."

She tilts her head, considering his reply. And then she gives him a gentler smile. This is where we start from, the smile says.

"Sometimes, so do I."

-2b-

Undoubtedly aware of the low-simmering issue between them, Jack makes a point of not sending Ianto and Albert out together. What with his insistence on keeping Ianto away from missions he sees as too dangerous, this means Albert is getting the lion's share of life-risking, and Ianto is losing every chance he might have of reconciling with the man enough to work together.

Ianto has one week left before Steven decides if they are to stay or to go off into the unknown. He calls him twice a day now, stretching Alice's patience but soothing his own nerves. Steven pipes with details of his new life, the joys and little tragedies. Even the days he says he hurts, and wants to end it all, Ianto finds words to give them both a little hope.

There's an irony in that he can find the right thing to say to an eleven-year-old, but be so stupid around another man his own age.

-5-

Jack should be the easiest of them. Jack loves him. All Ianto should have to do is ask him for whatever he wants, and Jack will provide it.

And there's the issue.

Jack will give him anything, but regaining his position only matters if Ianto earns it, and Jack will happily lock Ianto here in their flat far away from every chance at redemption. He'll wrap Ianto in blankets and store him like a painting or a Fabergé egg. Something beautiful and fragile, something rare, something not at all human.

They're in bed, it's late, and Jack is nuzzling his neck in sleepy satiation. The bedroom is chilly, but their pleasant exertions have made the space under the covers warm as toast.

Ianto wraps his arms tightly around Jack. "I need you to do something for me."

"Okay, but give me about ten minutes. I'm getting old. Takes a while to recover."

Ianto kisses his head fondly. "You don't look a day over five hundred."

Jack snorts and settles. Ianto's afraid he's going to fall asleep this way, and it's time to have this conversation. He's not sure he can have it in the morning. "Jack?"

"Hm?"

"I need you to forgive me."

Jack's muscles tense as he wakes. A long moment passes. "If you're about to tell me you've hidden an alien in the new basement, we're going to have words."

It's interesting to note that the prospect of Lisa's death still hanging between them is the joke Jack clings to in fear of what Ianto intends to say next. It's a painful distraction, and in days past, Ianto would have fled inside himself. But he's been dead, and although he misses Lisa and will always love her, her loss is no longer too devastating to recount. The decoy fails.

Worry rolls off Jack like sweat.

"Forgive me for dying, for leaving you alone. And forgive me for the fact that it's going to happen again some day."

Even as the words come out, Jack shrinks and shrivels in his arms, pulling away from what was warm contact. It's the same cold shock of lost afterglow that accompanies waking up next to the wrong person. Jack doesn't look at him.

"We're not talking about this."

"Tonight? Ever?"

"Ever's good with me." Jack rolls away and feigns sleep.

Ianto gives him time. Two long minutes pass. "Jack?"

"Go to sleep."

"Unless you forgive me for leaving you last time, you're going to be angry with me for the rest of my life, and after, and I can't cope with that."

"Learn."

"You don't mean that."

Jack rolls back over and looks at him in the darkness of their bedroom. "Fine. I forgive you. Go to sleep."

Ianto sighs. "You don't mean that, either."

"What do you want, Ianto?"

"I want you to forgive me for breaking your heart."

It has to be now, has to be here. Jack can, does, _must_ tamp down his feelings in the rest of their lives. He can admit what he feels when they are alone together.

"Apologising means you won't do it again."

Ianto chews his lip. "And that's why I'm not apologising. I could die tomorrow. I could die fifty years from now. It's going to happen. Neither of us can prevent that."

Jack's quiet for a long time. "No."

"Everyone you love hurts you. Everyone leaves you in the end. No exceptions."

An even longer pause. "Yeah."

"And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have to live through that, and I'm sorry for how much you hurt after I left like all the rest, and I'm sorry that no matter what, I'm going to hurt you again." He scoots closer to Jack, pressing kisses into the skin at Jack's neck, his shoulder. "I am so sorry for that. And I need you to forgive me because I can't change it."

"You could stay safe," Jack says, his voice a whisper.

"In two hundred years I'll still be dead."

"But maybe I won't cause it this time." The whisper is now barely more than air.

"That doesn't matter."

"Like hell it doesn't."

Ianto listens to him breathing, listens to the thump of his heart and the shift of the blankets as he moves.

"I changed my mind. I don't want you to forgive me."

"Good. Good night."

Before he can roll over, Ianto tells him, "I have a new favour to ask. Forgive yourself." When Jack doesn't respond, Ianto goes on. "I hate thinking about you years from now, still angry with me, but I'll take that. Fine. I've earned it. I've let you down. But it'll kill me all over again knowing you're angry with yourself long after I'm gone. So promise me that. Promise me you'll forgive yourself for what happened, for what will happen. Promise me and I swear I won't ever ask you for another thing."

Jack is silent for such a long time that, did Ianto not know better, he would swear Jack's fallen asleep. A quarter of an hour passes, more.

And then, at last, "Okay."

-2c-

It would figure that the only way Ianto can get Albert alone is by accident, when the rest of the team is busy with another call and Albert has to choose between going alone and dragging Ianto along as a driver. Grumbling, he accepts the help, and they rush to the address in Penarth. When they arrive, the situation isn't as dire as the police scanners made it out to be. Albert takes the lead without asking, sliding into inquiry mode rather than shoot and ask questions later mode. Ianto pulls out a small notebook and takes down everything he says, and the replies from the bystanders. He's good at playing assistant.

"It was just here," says the homeowner, her broad vowels scraping across his eardrums. She's got an old dressing gown on, and three small kids vying for her attention as she idly swats their hands away.

A fourth child, a girl of perhaps twelve years, appears in the doorway. Her hair is mussed, her smile wicked, and Ianto has a strong feeling she's going to be her gran's biggest headache as soon as she grows another inch, gets boobs, and discovers boys.

She dangles a piece of greenery above her own head, and with a jolt he's positive she's already discovered boys. He can't prevent the sweat popping out on his brow as a desire to kiss her floods through him, but he's a rock compared to Albert, who's already moving forward, eyes dark.

Oh shit.

"Albert, the artefact's affecting your mind. You have to fight it."

"Fuck off," Albert says, proving he truly is out of his head. He's an arse but he tries not to swear in front of little kids.

Ianto's head swims. Veteran of dozens of Jack's experiments in alien relationship enhancers, Ianto holds onto enough of himself to tackle Albert by the legs halfway down the hallway. The little girl is giggling, thinking the two men are fighting over her. If she keeps waving that bit of alien mistletoe, she may get her wish.

"Albert, stop it," Ianto growls, and gets a vicious kick to his thigh.

Oblivious to their struggle, or maybe just amused, the gran says, "Been like this all day. Can't keep the boys away. All they want to do is kiss, thank God. I told 'em to send a lady copper."

Ianto gets an arm free enough to punch Albert, stunning him, and he crawls to his feet. "Miss," he says through ragged breaths, trying to dispel grotesque fantasies of sweeping her up against his lips, "please hand that to me."

"No!" she squeals, dashing away with a laugh.

Ianto breaks his own rule about swearing in front of children, and follows her, aware of Albert on his heels.

With a mad spurt of energy, he pushes faster just as she reaches a doorway and attempts to slam it on his arm and leg. He pushes his way in, annoyed by her laughter. The girl thinks this is funny. He thinks it's a damn miracle she hasn't got herself into much worse trouble. Just as Albert reaches him, Ianto yanks the alien plant out of her hands and holds it above his own head, out of her reach.

So of course, he's nearly suffocated as Albert kisses him instead. Albert is in fact a terrible kisser, all force and tongue, with not a spot of the nuance Ianto's come to expect from a good snog. Figuring he's in for the whole thing, Ianto kisses him back properly, demonstrating a much better technique with the gentlest nibbling of lip.

Beside them, the girl laughs her arse off. Ianto does not let her have her toy back.

Fortunately, locking the mistletoe away in a containment bag seems to break the enchantment. Ianto is willing to look a bit debauched in exchange for the plant's acquisition (as well as some interesting ammo to use against Albert the next time they quarrel). Albert doesn't meet his eyes even as he gets out money to pay the old woman. They are, after all, antiques collectors, Ianto hurriedly explains, and this is an old party trick, Victorian, surprised to find one in such good condition, here's a tidy sum for your trouble, ma'am.

"T'were no trouble," says the old woman, pocketing the money. "Glad to see the back of that. Can't keep her out of mischief at the best of times."

Ianto smiles. "My godson is eleven. My nephew, too," he adds, guilt at having forgotten about David hastening the words. "Can't tell them anything at this age."

The girl waves to them wildly as they leave. Ianto wonders if her grandmother is going to lock her in the attic until she's thirty. He also wonders if he should get her phone number for Steven when she's sixteen.

Albert drives them home, silent in his own cloud of annoyance. Ianto's mobile rings. He picks up immediately. "Hello, Steven."

"Hi."

"Is everything all right?"

"Yeah." There's a long pause, uncomfortably punctuated by Albert's scan of the radio for something to listen to so he can pretend he's not eavesdropping on Ianto's conversation. "Ianto?"

"Yep?"

"I think I want to stay."

Albert's eyes are straight ahead. Ianto doesn't want to give this moment up to him. Neutrally, he says, "That's good news. Are you sure?"

"Yeah." There's a little fear in his voice, but firmness too. He's being brave, and it's getting easier.

"All right. I'll call you later, yeah?"

"Okay."

"And Steven? So do I."

Back at the Hub, Albert gives an abbreviated report to the team, very selectively omitting the long snogging session he shared with the boss's boyfriend.

"Alien mistletoe?" Jack asks, disbelieving and yet curious in a way that suggests they'll be removing this artefact from storage later. For scientific study. Yep.

"Victorian antique," Ianto corrected him, a slight wink to let him know he'll make sure to note the mistletoe's location for easy retrieval. Studying alien artefacts is important work, after all.

When the others have left, and Albert has grudgingly given him props for not losing his head, Ianto says, "I've been having a thought, actually. The front office is empty. Tosh and I used to have a couple of false IDs we'd use, claiming to be antiques dealers." Jack nods. He's used that story himself on more than one occasion. "What if we really did open the office as an antiques and collectibles business? It would give us more cover whilst we hunted down the less dangerous artefacts that went missing from the Hub's old collection, or from the Torchwood London clean-up." Jack's expression changes from interested to concerned, given their last run-in with scavenged detritus from Torchwood One. "I could run it. Spend my time researching and picking up the rubbish whilst you lot do the hard work."

He pauses, giving Jack time to think this over. It's a perfect fit, given Ianto's background with the old archives and with the old Tourist Office. It would give him a job uniquely his, not stepping on the work performed by Jack and Gwen's new team, useful in a task they won't have time for themselves, and allowing him to stay close for when he's needed. It might even possibly keep him out of danger, certainly moreso than regular Torchwood work. And by making the suggestion, Ianto is saying he does intend to stay in Cardiff.

As he waits, he can see these same thoughts revolving in Jack's mind.

After enough time, Ianto asks, "What do you think?"

"We'll talk to Gwen. But she'll say it's brilliant." Jack's smile is both effervescent and relieved. "When do you want to start?"

"I'll get the paperwork going now. I could be setting up shop as soon as tomorrow." Ianto matched Jack's smile. "And as I'm starting a new job, what do you say we plan on celebrating later tonight?"

"Want to go out somewhere?"

"No. I think this celebration is best spent at home." He locked the box with the mistletoe. "Making Christmas plans."

* * *

The End

* * *

My three favourite words are, "I liked this." :)


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